Does Prefuse 73 own a label? It’s a fair question. Guillermo Scott Herren seemed like he’d own a label. If I’m going with my gut, I would say, yes, Guillermo Scott Herren a.k.a. Prefuse 73 owns a label. But I’d be wrong! Except Pitchfork says that now I’m not wrong. Funny how time goes so quick like. Alongside Seattle photographer Angel Ceballos, Herren has started a new label: Yellow Year Records.

If you’ve got a label, you’ve got to put out some releases. This is really Owning-A-Label 101. As it turns out, Yellow Year Records has 12 releases planned, all part of a series of collaborative EPs titled Speak Soon. Through this series, Prefuse plans to work with Teebs, Nosaj Thing, Nathan Fake, Lapalux, Synkro, Dimlite, and, one would assume, six others. Because the world’s fun like that, allow me to predict the other six: Beetle Bailey of the comic strip Beetle Bailey, the ghost of William Shakespeare, Prince Paul, a box of matches, Harmony Korine, and Paul Anka. Check out the (unfortunately Paul Anka-less) trailer for the series below, which features music from Prefuse’s collaboration with Teebs:

Awesome Tapes from Africa might be the most literal record label in the African Reissue game. They’ve got a new LP/CD/MP3/C60 release, guys. And it’s awesome. It was originally a tape. And you might wanna sit down from this one — IT’S FROM AFRICA! Ethiopia, to be exact. It’s from a gentleman named Hailu Mergia, who reworked classic songs from his home country into super awesome reimaginings based around that holy trinity of instruments, accordion, keyboards, and “low-key rhythm machine.” Hailu Mergia and His Classical Instrument drops June 25.

Now, it might not be so easy to catch the majority of these purveyors of awesome tapes in action. But that’s why the Good Lord gave us DJ nights, isn’t it? (He must’ve given them to us for some reason.) Perhaps this is also why he gave us Germany — specifically for the Awesome Tapes from Africa guys to DJ in. I mean, Dude is DJing there in three different Deutsche cities in a month. Hell, I’m not even going to be in Germany next month, let alone DJing in it.

If Michael Flatley is Lord of the Dance, then Rhys Chatham is obviously Lord of the Guitars. (Sorry, Esteban.) And now the Man, the Myth, the Legend (Chatham, not the other two — at least not in this news story) is bringing one of his guitar orchestra compositions on the road this summer. That’s right: the legendary Guitar Trio a.k.a. G3, begat in the Year of Our Punk Rock Lord 1977, is coming to a city kinda near you, where Chatham and collaborator David Daniell will teach this seminal piece of guitar art to a coterie of local musicians, who will then stand on stage at your local performance venue and blow everyone’s collective minds. Chatham is also teaming up with Oneida for a series of hot dates.

G3 spreads its wings for its 2013 summer vacation on June 7, when San Francisco’s The Lab will become ground zero for the Guitarpocalypse. Then Chatham jets off to Brooklyn for the Northside Fest, where he’ll be jamming along with likeminded souls Oneida. Next up: Oneida and Chatham venture to romantic Montreal, before boarding a plane to a sure-to-be-historic Deerhunter-curated ATP Festival at beautiful Camber Sands, England. Then it’s on to Croatia, where Mr. Chatham will assemble Zagreb’s finest to perform G3. Wow. Fancytime. Instead of a tour bus they have a yacht. Michael Flatley’s yacht.

Winter has descended upon the mighty kingdom known as The Internet. LOLcats are kinda old news. Your little sister doesn’t even know what it means to get “Rickrolled.” There hasn’t been a good punk documentary posted on the walls of 90% of your Facebook friends since somebody rediscovered that BBC series of docs like a year ago. But lo! Like a mythical sun dragon rising up over the gleaming mountains of boredom comes MOCAtv’s new The Art of Punk series, here to banish your internet malaise with high production values, cool guests, and a totally kickass topic: the iconic art of Black Flag, Crass, and the Dead Kennedys.

Featuring interviews with Henry Rollins, Jello Biafra, Winston Smith, Keith Morris, Flea, Dave King, and Raymond Pettibon, each episode will delve into the visual art that informs the legend of each band, through album art, concert fliers, and all the rest of that good shit. The series was put together by filmmaker Bo Bushnell and author Bryan Ray Turcotte, author of the best-selling Fucked Up + Photocopied, one of the most comprehensive looks into the art of 70s and 80s (often) homemade punk rock fliers EVER. The series’ first episodes hits internet waves on June 11, and features Black Flag. MOCAtv can be found on good ol’ YouTube.

Oh man, sorry to keep you guys waiting! I know you were breathlessly holding your breaths and breathing hard wondering what Franz Ferdinand’s new album details were gonna be like after having waited four interminable years since the release of their last LP (you know, that one, the one that changed everything about the way we live and interact?); but I really wanted to get this story PERFECT before I published it, just in case we’ve got another “paradigm shift” on our hands here. So, as I’m sure you can imagine, I’ve been super-busy painstakingly sculpting each sentence concerning the August 27 (August 26 in the UK) release of their new Domino Records release Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action bit by bit, word by word, phoneme by fucking phoneme, for the last week or so, packing it with subtle nuance for maximum effect.

Umm, but then I realized that Domino pretty much had all the info listed about the album right next to the preorder options (there’s CD, LP, Deluxe Double CD, Deluxe Double LP, and even “Deluxe Passport Edition,” which comes with the whole album on both CD and double vinyl in a hand-numbered sleeve, as well as a bonus 7-inch containing two non-album tracks, a live studio recording called “Right Notes, Right Words, Wrong Order,” some sort of bonus 12-inch, a postcard from each band member, and “more”!). And then I further realized that there’s also a trailer for the album that I could just embed below the tracklisting too! Arrrrg! So then, as I’m sure you can imagine, I got pretty despondent and started getting all lament-y about how people don’t need to get their music news from music sites anymore, and I just kinda threw in the towel, figuring you’d probably find out about the album on your own if you wanted to. Sorry to jerk you around! I hope we’re still cool!

Grumbling Fur have chosen a simultaneously misleading and apt name. Misleading because the phrase itself calls to mind images of amusingly flustered, hairy, leather-clad biker daddies, which Grumbling Fur don’t seem to be, and apt because there is grumbling in here and there is some seriously hairy noise. Listen to any track off their first album, Furrier, stare deeply into the image of the back of Kayako’s head that graces the cover, and it all comes together rather startlingly.

Their new album, Glynnaestra, seems to be moving away from the horror/fantasy flavor of Furrier and firmly into the realm of pop…and science fiction. One of the tracks, which Thrill Jockey describes as “anthemic,” is called “The Ballad of Roy Batty.” Naming a track after Rutger Hauer’s second best role and referencing the best SF film of all time (you wanna fight about it)? That’s guts. If that was not enough, apparently the track “His Moody Face” is a slice of “slow burning, molten proto-hip hop.” That frankly baffling and no doubt intentionally intriguing description gets the hook in pretty deep. And what the hell, might as well get reeled in; maybe fur will be big this come July 27.